​​“Recently the officials inspected our house and gave us one week to install rainwater harvesting structure. We have initiated efforts to install RWH,” a resident of Karumandapam, who was served with a notice, said. Deepak Karthik | TNN | August 17, 2019, 16:00 IST

TRICHY: Trichy Corporation has expedited the field study to make sure that rainwater harvesting (RWH) mechanisms are present in buildings across the city. Residents in Karumandapam, falling under ward number 45, were served with notices to install RWH mechanism within a week and if they failed to do so, their water connections shall be terminated by the local body.

After hosting a slew of awareness drives including a personalized letter to each household from the corporation commissioner N Ravichandran insisting on the importance of rainwater conservation, the local body initiated the process to issue notices to erring buildings recently.

The civic body officials said that during the door-to-door inspections, the households that were found lacking RWH mechanism were served a notice urging the property owner to install RWH mechanism within a week time or face actions such as severing of water and underground drainage (UGD) connections.

“Recently the officials inspected our house and gave us one week to install rainwater harvesting structure. We have initiated efforts to install RWH,” a resident of Karumandapam, who was served with a notice, said.

While the corporation claimed that a majority of the households and properties have RWH structures, it is learnt that many properties have dismantled the mechanism after a period of time.

“A few houses have converted the pit meant to collect rainwater into sumps for collecting potable water from corporation’s water pipes. Even legal actions can be initiated against such property owners under Tamil Nadu Combined Building Rules 2019 for not having RWH mechanism,” an official source with civic body said.